Why do we always stand and stare?

Like the weather, crime is one of those aspects of life in which reality and perception do not necessarily enjoy a close relationship. Just as summers were always hotter when we were children, so too were the streets filled with law-abiding citizens and bobbies on the beat, and violence was as rare as a decent cup of coffee.

The difference is that whereas the data suggests summers were actually cooler 30 years ago, the crime statistics appear to show that we have become hotter-headed. The figures for robbery and rape, for example, have gone up tenfold. Or maybe they have not. The problem is crime is a notoriously difficult business to enumerate. It could just be that there are more rapes recorded now because previously there were far fewer reported than were committed.

There were 515 homicides in England and Wales in 1975 and 853 last year. So that's up, but a rise from two murders every three days to three murders every two days, though regrettable, hardly points to the total social collapse and degradation of popular legend.

Yet you would have to be a lucky inhabitant of that most desirable neighbourhood, cloud-cuckoo-land, not to be aware of the feral wing of the nation's youth, that section of the community that doesn't appear the least bit inhibited by old-fashioned concepts such as the law. It's the traditional role of the young, of course, to push against authority. But that's not the same as not recognising it at all, which is a more advanced talent that we appear to be hot-housing.

The government has just announced yet further measures to target antisocial behaviour, and aggressive drunks and knife carriers will be singled out for particular legislative attention. Predictably, many well-meaning people will see the proposed bills as an attack on the poor and the young. But both the government and its opponents are locked in a sterile debate. The home office seeks to cut crime by empowering the police, while the bien-pensants prefer to see young criminals as victims of social inequality.

However, neither position is likely to do much to alter behaviour or, as the government hopes, increase social respect. The police can't be everywhere, they appear to be struggling to impose the laws at their disposal as it is, and to many young people the prospect of arrest is no more than an inconvenience. The idea that you have to put society right first of all is fine, except that it may take a long time, possibly close to an eternity, but in the meantime people need to feel and be protected.

What both approaches miss is our social responsibility to protect each other, and especially the weak. For too many of us, street violence is always someone else's problem: society's, the government's, the police's, the schools'. I was struck by this realisation recently when I drove past a gang of teenage girls attacking another teenage girl in the middle of an upmarket high street.

A group of about 10 adults stood around and watched. Not one of them intervened, although I could see, even from the car, that the girl being assaulted was bleeding. So I stopped the car and shouted at her attackers to stop. Then I got out and ran over, at which point the girls walked off - they weren't so bothered as to run - laughing and triumphant. It was then that I saw the gash in their victim's cheek, gaping from below her eye down to her mouth, where a bottle had been stabbed in her face.

She was about 16, in shock and shaking. As I called the ambulance and the police, a number of the spectators went into loud Samaritan mode, shouting at everyone to stand back as they aided the poor girl. By then, of course, she was disfigured for life. Where, I wondered, were these righteous voices when she needed them? It turned out the attack had lasted for almost five minutes.

I noted one onlooker, a man in his 30s, with a smile on his face. "What's so funny?" I asked him. "She's a young girl. How could you stand by and watch that happen to her?"

"Don't have a go at me, you pompous prick," he replied, belatedly emboldened. "Why should I get involved? It had nothing to do with me."

Recently my stepdaughter suffered an unprovoked attack by a gang of teenage girls and boys in a busy high street. There were scores of adults around and not one of them did or said a thing as she was kicked and punched. Perhaps everyone was waiting for society to change and become less unfair. Perhaps they were waiting for the police. Or perhaps they were waiting for new legislation.

You could ban hoodies, make juvenile offenders wear Tango outfits, enlarge the police force by 50%, build a thousand new community centres, raise taxes on the rich and increase benefits for the poor, but as long as enough of us don't seem to care what happens in front of our eyes, then we shouldn't be surprised if some kids don't seem to care what they do. In this respect, if no other, perception is reality.

Meanwhile, over on Celebrity Love Island ...

The voices of doom are already announcing that ITV's new reality TV show has won the Allcomers Cultural Limbo Contest, bringing western civilisation to a new and apparently unsurpassable low. Personally, I think such judgments about Celebrity Love Island may prove a little premature. I still feel that the pleasuring of a pig by a former PA to David Beckham in The Farm sits more deeply, if not more profoundly, in the trough of reality television.

In any case, Celebrity Love Island has managed to capture something of the frenetic dissatisfaction of modern-day life. When the contestants arrived in the full boom of their obscure celebrity, they explored the very limits of English to describe the wonders of the Fijian island: "paradise", "amazing", "unbelievable" being among the thought-provoking adjectives.

One of them, Jayne Middlemiss, did some beatific yoga, demonstrating her at-oneness with nature and herself. And then, after a bit of flirting, burst into tears and announced she wanted to go home. Bliss goes but to a certain bound, beyond is agony. Give the woman a pig.

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